Carnosaur (1993)

the audience applauded

Great Film overall

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Ahhh, one of the classics from my Godzilla-obsessed childhood. Seemed so much better back then..but apart from that, we have a Dinosaur obsessed scientist who believes that humans should be wiped out (except for her I guess) and the Dinosaurs brought back to life, hence why she's breeding them back into existence with chickens. The movie has an interesting plot but the way it unfolds really leaves you scratching your head sometimes. Like, how on earth did an egg that's bigger than a full grown chicken...come out of a full grown chicken? I guess it kinda looked like the chicken actually exploded due to the size of the egg, but you don't really find out. It's extremely obvious in many scenes that they are literally using a large hand puppet for the dinosaur, simply snapping its jaws up and down at peoples mid sections. I mean hey, it's no classic but its one of those movies you watch when you're a teen and its late at night on the weekends. Wouldn't mind watching it again.

Here's a gory and campy fun movie from Roger Corman studios that does not take itself seriously, therefore belongs in the "so bad its good" category of silly B-movies. Diane Ladd is a brilliant biologist secretly experimenting with a deadly virus and a new species of dinosaur in a plot to wipe out human existence. Her genetic cross-breed is made possible by.... you guessed it, Chickens! The prehistoric predators are now lose in the desert outskirts of the bioengineering facility, and wreck gory havoc on the surrounding population, including environmental enthusiasts, teenage party-goers, a roughneck maintenance man, and of course, Clint Howard, who always seems to make an appearance in theses types of movies, and not to mention a climatic battle between a bobcat bulldozer and a T-Rex.It took two directors to put together this nonsense, and the formula consists of rubbery dinosaurs, plenty of limb ripping, grotesque monster births, and tons of gore and mayhem. Its fast-paced and hilarious, despite whether or not the laughs are achieved intentionally. The performances are well done, and the directors' use of lighting and camera trickery do it justice. If the big-budget hit, Jurassic Park is more to your liking, you will probably hate this little creature feature, but keep in mind the creators were probably spoofing the whole deal, and something is said about people who contribute to destroying the environment. Regardless of its philosophical ideology, its not meant to be analyzed. Approach it with a sense of humor, and you'll find this to be quite a ride.

Reading about Carnosaur, I was expecting a terribly cheap movie and for it to be blatantly derivative of the Steven Spielberg classic Jurassic Park. While far from a good movie, and certainly nowhere near as fun, thrilling or intense as Jurassic Park, I was expecting far worse than what I saw. Diane Ladd relishes her mad scientist, and this is one totally bonkers mad scientist, and the baby carnosaur is genuinely scary. Carnosaur is also gorier and bloodier than JP, and the gore is actually quite good and has moments where it is used inventively to the extent that you may be put off eating for some time after. Carnosaur is a very cheap-looking movie though, the sets lack colour and the camera work and editing lack finesse and cohesion. But I agree about the special effects and the animatronics on the dinosaurs faring worst in this regard, they are truly dreadful and definitely some of the worst dinosaur effects I've seen for any movie in my life. The score is not particularly rousing and has nothing that leaps out as memorable. It doesn't distract from what's going on as such but it just doesn't add anything either, it's just there and fails to make much of an impact. The script doesn't work either, nor does the story. The dialogue is stodgy, cheesy and overly-talky, while the story- not doing much with a decent if rather silly concept- apart from some inventive gory scenes is stripped of suspense, scenes that should scare can be unintentionally funny instead, the romantic plot line is mawkish and slows things down in the middle and the prehistoric rampage antics do get predictable quickly. The characters read of every cliché the writers could find and are poorly developed, no scratch that, the movie certainly knows what it tries to be which is good but while it does strive for some fun and scares(though not really succeeding) the characters are almost completely forgotten in the process. Of the acting only Ladd makes any kind of impression, the rest just sleepwalk through their roles and don't seem to care less about their characters' situations. Overall, could have been worse, especially considering what I'd read, but not a good movie. I recommend it partially for those who want a bit of silly fun without having to think too much, but for those who does know what to expect but still want to see some kind of quality put into it they may want to look elsewhere. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Carnosaur (1993) ** (out of 4) Diane Ladd plays a mad scientist who plans on returning the Earth back to the dinosaurs. She's created a special serum that will have women giving birth to the creatures and soon they will take over everything. CARNOSAUR was producer Roger Corman's attempt to cash-in on Steven Spielberg's JURASSIC PARK, which would be released later in the year. It's pretty funny that Corman was able to get this thing a theatrical release but sadly the movie doesn't live up to much because it's just a tad bit too mainstream for its own good. Overall the film does manage to get a good feel of those 1950s monster movies where there's really not much of a story and instead of one we just get a monster running around killing people. This is actually one thing that works with the picture and I think another good thing is that the filmmakers never take the subject or story overly serious. This works for a number of reasons but the biggest is that star Ladd takes the material so serious that you can't help but be entertained by her maniac style performance. I liked the fact that she was so serious in the movie simply because it adds a level of entertainment that you wouldn't have had had the actress simply shown up to cash a check. Obviously the special effects weren't going to be on the level of the Spielberg film but for the most part I thought they were good. Yes, it's obvious these things aren't real but that really doesn't hurt the film as they're at least entertaining for what they are. I think what hurts the film is the fact that it's a tad bit too pretty for its own good. With the Spielberg movie being what it is, usually these rip-offs try to just be exploitation 101 and CARNOSAUR really doesn't reach that level. The usually seen nudity isn't anywhere to be found and the death scenes are pretty lifeless and uninteresting. A film like this really needed to deliver for its lack of effects and story but instead we're just given a watered down version of a horror movie.